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Not only has it been found that the woman had a DNR order on file, but the woman's daughter, who is herself a nurse, says they were well aware of the facilities policy and she was satisfied with the level of care her mother got and how the situation was handled.

You're going to need a better source than the Daily Mail. It's a tabloid rag. The interesting part is that in all the articles I've read, most of them are very similar, save for a key paragraph found in the Daily Mail article that says:

Did the home have nobody qualified to perform that procedure? I can see liability as an issue if someone untrained attempted it, but this is sickening.

Apparently, the nursing home's policy is to wait until paramedics arrive, totally negating the purpose of first aid and emergency life procedures.

Exactly, I would take The Onion as a more reliable source than The Daily Mail as no other media source has said anything about the woman having a DNR. If that was the case it certainly would have been mentioned and there'd be no issue here at all. Heck, if the woman has a DNR there'd be no reason to call 911 for help!

As for the question on someone being qualified to perform the procedure, I would assume that to be a nurse you'd have to know how to perform CPR.

Now, I have heard that the woman's family saying they were satisfied with the home's care, but I'd like to see how that develops. I find it very hard to believe that the family is satisfied that the NURSES at the facility basically sat there and did nothing while their family member died when CPR could have been performed and likely saved the woman's life.

I wonder why pay for having nurses at all if they're not going to be allowed to perform CPR or other life-saving procedures. If all you need is for someone to call 911 if needed then, hell, anyone can do that. I also wonder how the nurse as another human being and trained professional can just sit there idly by and not do a single, damn, thing to save this woman's life. That's what's disgusting about this.

The 911 operator PLEADS for this nurse to get someone to do CPR and the nurse is basically saying, "Meh, whadda you going to do? And stop yelling at me! Big meanie!"

LINK to an audio file of the 911 call. Pretty dramatic sounding, the context of who made the initial call is unclear the person wasn't even able to provide the 911 operator with address or where they were in the facility.

Was it a nursing home, or an assisted living center? They are two different things with different rules...

And had someone at this facility performed CPR, even if she had survived after, they would be fired for violating facility policy.

Was it a nursing home, or an assisted living center? They are two different things with different rules...

And had someone at this facility performed CPR, even if she had survived after, they would be fired for violating facility policy.

As I understand it the place where the woman was was basically a retirement home/community. It wasn't for assisted living or for persons needing medical attention.

On your second point, regardless of the person being fired for "violating policy" I think that'd make me, personally, feel better than to go the rest of my life wonder if I had done the nature of my job if it would have saved a life.

These women were nurses. I don't know if nurses take something akin to the Hippocratic Oath but these women are in a medical profession and are specifically trained to help save lives. To just stand there and do nothing while a woman suffocated to death or suffered from hear failure is utterly disgusting.

I would think "Stood idly by while an elderly woman died wondering on the phone 911 when help was going to arrive" looks worse on a resume than "attempted to save a life by providing CPR to someone who needed it, in spite of it being against policy."

Performing CPR wouldn't have put the woman -or the facility- in any legal trouble. (There are laws to prevent that. You can't get in trouble for failing to provide help.) However since this woman died since the professionals at this location refused to provide any level of life-saving care (including asking a passer-by to help -something even EMTs and firefighters are trained, and required, to do even when THEY are the ones arriving for help-) the facility is much more open to legal action from the family and possibly even criminal action from local law enforcement.

Anyone with a brain and a heart should hear this 911 call and be disgusted by the actions of the "nurses" at this facility. The woman is laying on the floor DYING, getting but a single breath once a minute or so and the nurses, people trained to provide life-saving care- are just standing there shrugging and saying they can't help.

I hope they all lose their licenses and are forced into another line of work. I also hope this retirement community has all of the residents flee it (either on their own or by their family members) and it gets shut down and turned into a parking lot.

I guess, more my point, was that if you perform CPR on someone and you don't help or if you injure them you don't get in trouble as there are laws to protect you from any legal action. (Civil or otherwise.) I believe all states have laws protecting people who try and to provide help in emergency situations just like this. (There can be exceptions, of course, but providing CPR to someone taking a single breath a minute cannot provoke any problems.)

Now, I don't think people should be required to provide help if they can (some controversial laws are out there along these lines) unless, of course that person is in the medical profession at a care facility.

They were talking about this on the local radio show today and they were wondering what would have happened if, say, this woman had severely gotten cut, nicking an artery or something. Would the nurses stand idly by and the woman bled out? If she was choking would they have performed the Heimlich Maneuver?

Now, I don't think people should be required to provide help if they can (some controversial laws are out there along these lines) unless, of course that person is in the medical profession at a care facility.

Saving lives is an absolute good. I'm not entirely convinced we SHOULDN'T have such laws.

__________________
"But here you are, in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look but inside
Where we all respond to PRESSURE!" - Billy Joel

In the common law of most anglosphere countries, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another. Generally, a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril. However, such a duty may arise in two situations:

A duty to rescue arises where a person creates a hazardous situation. If another person then falls into peril because of this hazardous situation, the creator of the hazard – who may not necessarily have been a negligent tortfeasor – has a duty to rescue the individual in peril.

Such a duty also arises where a "special relationship" exists. For example:

Emergency workers (firefighters, emergency medical technicians, etc.) have a general duty to rescue the public within the scope of their employment. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled in Warren v. DC that the police have no duty to protect any citizen not in custody, and cannot be sued for their failure to protect.

Parents have a duty to rescue their minor children. This duty also applies to those acting in loco parentis, such as schools or babysitters.

Common carriers have a duty to rescue their patrons.

Employers have an obligation to rescue employees, under an implied contract theory.

Property owners have a duty to rescue invitees but not trespassers from all dangers on the property.

Spouses have a duty to rescue each other in all U.S. jurisdictions.

In the United States, as of 2009 ten states had laws on the books requiring that people at least notify law enforcement of and/or seek aid for strangers in peril under certain conditions . . . These laws are also referred to as Good Samaritan laws, despite their difference from laws of the same name that protect individuals that try to help another person. These laws are rarely applied, and are generally ignored by citizens and lawmakers.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that, except in specific circumstances that create a duty of care (as per the examples above), no one should be legally obligated to help a person in distress. Acting out of common decency and humanity isn't something that can be or should be legislated. You can educate people but you can't compel them to help one another, any more than you can force people to love one another.

__________________“All the universe or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?”

^^ I agree. You can't compel someone to be a Samaritan. But it boggles my mind that a bunch of nurses would stand by and watch somebody die. How can helping people be against company policy? It takes a pretty sick mind to come up with something like that.